Today in history

On Oct. 5, 1892,

the Dalton Gang, notorious for its train robberies, was practically wiped out while attempting to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kan.

In 1910

Portugal was proclaimed a republic.

In 1921

the World Series was broadcast on radio for the first time.

In 1931

Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon completed the first nonstop flight across the Pacific, arriving in Washington state 41 hours after takeoff from Japan.

In 1937,

with World War II on the horizon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a “quarantine” of aggressor nations.

In 1947,

in the first televised White House address, President Harry Truman asked Americans to observe meatless Tuesdays, use no poultry or eggs on Thursdays and eat one less slice of bread a day to provide food supplies for the hungry of postwar Europe.

In 1953

Earl Warren was sworn in as the 14th U.S. chief justice.

In 1962

the Beatles’ first hit, “Love Me Do,” was released in the United Kingdom.

In 1969

“Monty Python’s Flying Circus” made its debut on BBC Television.

In 1978

author Isaac Bashevis Singer was named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

In 1981

President Ronald Reagan signed a resolution granting honorary American citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving about 100,000 Hungarians, most of them Jews, from the Nazis during World War II.

In 1983

labor leader Lech Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of Polish workers.

In 1988

Democrat Lloyd Bentsen lambasted Republican Dan Quayle during their vice presidential debate, telling Quayle, “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

In 1989

the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Also in 1989, a jury in Charlotte, N.C., convicted former “PTL Show” evangelist Jim Bakker of using his television program to defraud followers.

In 1990

a jury in Cincinnati acquitted an art gallery and its director of obscenity charges stemming from an exhibit of sexually graphic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.

In 1992

both houses of Congress voted to override President George H.W. Bush’s veto of a measure to re-regulate cable television companies.

In 1993

China set off an underground nuclear blast, ignoring a plea from President Bill Clinton not to do so.

In 1994

48 people were found dead in an apparent murdersuicide carried out simultaneously in two Swiss villages by members of a secret religious doomsday cult — the Order of the Solar Temple. Five other bodies were found in an apartment owned by the sect in Montreal.

In 1995

Seamus Heaney of Ireland won the 1995 Nobel Prize in literature.

In 2001

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants set a new mark for home runs in a single season, hitting his 71st and 72nd in a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In 2004

Americans’ supply of flu vaccine was abruptly cut in half as British regulators unexpectedly shut down Chiron Corp., a major supplier. Also in 2004 Americans David Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczeck won the Nobel Prize in physics. Also in 2004 a state judge threw out Louisiana’s constitutional amendment banning samesex marriage.

In 2005

the Senate, in defiance of the White House, voted 90-9 to approve an amendment that would prohibit the use of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” against anyone in U.S. government custody. Also in 2005 Americans Robert Grubbs and Richard Schrock and Frenchman Yves Chauvin won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.